The Recoil

So what's up. It's pretty outside and I'm gorging coffee like every morning. I'm looking at the neighbours' house through the trees, it has vines growing on it. I hear my boyfriend waking.

My new therapist asked what are my objectives. I'm seeing her tomorrow and want to try to answer that, but it's not easy. Having more energy is one but to do what. Better to aim for that paralyzing thing I have, were in front of options I retreat, I recoil. But I needed to. Then why and what - those are questions that are hard to answer and that's also why I don't try to write fiction, there are too many why's and what. But I thoroughly and deeply enjoy Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series, I'm at the third book.

What is the life I want -- I said it should be simple. Anyway, I'm not sure if I have to dig and excavate something out of myself, or catch my bliss.

I understand the anxiety monster that I'm learning to distance and ignore. Feels better. There is sadness and malaise, or anger, and projection of bad thoughts all around. On Friday, the opulent houses of Westmount were judging me, walking in their neighbourhood were no bench or parc allowed me to rest. I was sad in my heart. There are no reasons.

Then I like having time now. I read, walk, meditate and do small things. I coloured two of the four mandalas but I'm also knitting a sock and thinking of knitting something else instead that's even more repetitive. I know that creation helps, and colours. I keep the house ok clean but it's not a revolution. And I would like to have a revolution in my house. Clear out a room for creation. Get rid of a lot of things, and lighten up.

Beau is also depressed I think and that is worrying me a lot too I guess. I could be more positive. Fall is truly spectacular and so bright. I think everyone supports me but I don't know, I think I have all this negative judgement that I project not even on people, in the air, in my head.

So. What I want to have is a simple life, a schedule I manage, time to rest and play and grow. Have a family and a warm house with friends. And to use my sensibility and intellect in a rewarding way, to get it out there and make good. Should be doable?

Amourx.

Summary

For the record. I found a new psychologist who gave me some mandalas to colour. In the art supply shop I awoke a bit, I was already thinking of drawing which is easier and different than writing. I cleared up  my house. My doctor and my boss told me, wrote me, that I need to rest as long as I needed to rest and I would say when. I don't have any money coming in and I have to figure that out. I'm looking at fall leaves and light and I am amazed. I still am low key but I finished my three mid term exams. I'm reading Ferrante. It's still my birthday since my family is doing a brunch for me next week-end. Kind of a new world where space is given and I am starting to accept that I can take it and use it. Beau is also happy about how it's turning out for me. I still didn't tell everyone, but there aren't that many folks to tell anyway, and this feels right. Another nice fall day today and I may get out. Administration duty linger on, but that's for tomorrow. I'm exhausted.

Amourx.

Growing Pains in French

C'est ma fête. Ça me fait entrer définitivement dans l'âge adulte, selon moi. C'est un peu aujourd'hui que sa se passe. Comme ça mes opinions ont une autorité inhérente parce que je suis quelque part entre le tiers et la moitié de ma vie, plus proche de la moitié mais j'ai espoir de vivre longtemps.

Ce matin j'ai eu de bons mots et de beaux baisers, et puis tout ceux de Facebook. Ça fait du bien :-). Je suis encore horizontale. Je souhaite me dorloter un peu avec une coupe de cheveux ou quelque chose dans un spa, un massage tient.

Je me dis qu'il faut que je résume mon état pour pouvoir décider avec mon médecin où j'en suis. Sur mon formulaire, c'est écrit dépression majeure et TAG, pour trouble d'anxiété généralisé. Alors c'est ça l'étiquette, mais la vie ne se circonscrit pas dans les étiquettes.

Où j'en suis. Encore les états d'âmes difficiles, mais un peu plus de mouvement. Un peu plus, mais aussitôt que j'arrête je m'étends. C'est une progression. Par contre je suis enthousiasmé par les marches et les quelques activités que j'ai fait avec mon amour et mes amies et famille. Aussi je continue le yoga, la méditation, et j'écoute des trucs sur l'alignement et le mouvement naturel depuis hier. Ça ça me semble faire du bien.

Ensuite je fatigue, mais je dirais que je vais, comme avant, accepter les invitations qui viennent qui ne sont pas trop prenantes. C'est tout ce que j'ai à faire. Et, j'ai deux psychologue là... histoire que je change d'un à l'autre mais que je ne manque pas de suivi entre temps.

C'est compliqué je sais. Ces chose là, les décisions sur ma vie fondamentalement, sont très dures. Et elles sont couvertes, cachées, derrière des sentiments très noirs allant de la culpabilité à la honte au mal de vivre, et la peur qui sous-tend tout ça.

Prête à retourner non. Accepte le temps que ça prend, pas encore. Mais mes journées sont moins lourdes tranquillement, je respire un peu plus d'aisance.

Je n'ai rien à promettre à personne aujourd'hui. L'automne est si belle.

Amourx.

Recherche somehow du plaisir

L'absence de contrôle ne veut pas dire que je vais sombrer, mais j'ai vraiment de la misère. Toute la nuit je pense à quoi faire, comment orchestrer, contrôler les choses qui m'arrivent. Je m'agrippe, je n'ai pas de lâcher prise. Je sens que c'est là que je dois aller mais je sais pas vraiment. Je lit trop de romans et voit trop de films qui relate des creux et des quêtes. Puisque je ne travaille pas on dirait que je dois vivre quelque chose de magistral pour que ça vaille la peine mais c'est le silence total.

Ça fait pas des enfants forts. En voilà une qui voulait être drôle mais non, parce que ma prochaine FIV est repoussée de je ne sais combien de semaines. J'aurais tellement voulu l'avoir quand je suis en congé, les deux prochaines semaines. Je regrette ne pas avoir fait accélérer les choses. Voilà qui me déprime profondément. J'ai appris hier seulement ce nouveau délais. Et c'est facile de calculer, ma fête la semaine prochaine me place à l'âge limite, l'année qui se termine annonce la fin de la gratuité, en allant là c'est rien pour m'aider à garder le moral.

Donc, faut pas s'apitoyer. J'ai passé la nuit à parler de moi à la troisième personne: elle est préoccupée, elle pense au travail, elle juge, elle rumine... pour toute les pensée qui me trottait dans la tête. Il y a aussi eu "elle sens de l'amour". Ça désengage, et c'est vrai que ça ouvre à la compassion, on se dit pauvre petite - peut on la détendre et la rassurer?

Il y a pourtant bien sur des bonnes choses comme mes nouveau soulier. L'expérience commençait bien au début, puis j'ai eu l'écoeurement propre au magasinage, ça n'a pas été long. Je suis parti avec des runnings, très insécure sur mon choix. Puis mon chum et sa mère les ont aimés, et moi aussi, alors là je suis contente car je pourrai marcher partout en ville avec ça, confortablement, car ma petite hanche me fait mal.

Autres bonnes choses... cuisiner un bon souper hier pour manger avec la belle-mère avant son départ en Pologne. Nettoyer la maison - je jure que j'ai aimé! Le yoga l'autre jour.

En se moment "elle" est préoccupée. "Elle" sens un poids à l'intérieur et un écoeurement. "Elle" est morose. "Elle" pense à manger quelque chose. Je pense à combattre ça par pure positivisme, par inattention, par recherche somehow du plaisir. Par l'activité physique et la rencontre d'amies aujourd'hui.

"Elle" se demande si le remède est dans la profondeur ou dans la légèreté. "Elle" réfléchi et analyse toujours. "Elle" se demande quoi faire, ça la fait sentir une petite panique. C'est sans doute ça la rumination. C'est tellement méta quand sa porte sur soi-même. Pas super.

Légèreté.

Amourx.

Let Thy Turnip Turnip

I have to keep recording. I'm still thinking about work for what feels like 70% of the time even at night. I'm still very anxious - the other part of the time I am thinking in fear of where I am and what to do. But, somehow I manage to get better.

I am doing 1 or 2 things a day - happily changing meds slowly, I suspect this will work better and get rid of my drowsiness. I go to movies in the daytime and have been to yoga twice and gym once. I meditated sometimes.

Just wanted to say that sometimes I feel the normal me. Yesterday night, and some sparks in the morning where I think of joining a yoga training program, or when I clean something.

But I have this control thing were I'm hoping to pull myself out of the ground (cause I'm a turnip) by will and strength alone. Orchestrate my disease, my finances, my next steps.  That is haunting me, and I am not letting go. I am terribly afraid but how long will I hide in there. I only want small things, good things. It doesn't have to be a revolution. I want my large aspirations to come down into simple things within me. Ugh.

But I have to be out of control, out of this terrible will to overcome all the things. Let go of next steps and finances and... let the disease do its thing I guess.

Wanted to say that at times in my life I have feared that my personality was exploded or disintegrated. That may be what I fear the most.

I don't want to organize a party just like beau doesn't. It's our birthdays and friends are waiting and willing for us to invite. Friends and parties are good things for me and for us. So, I will make a subhuman effort here. Ugh. Thank god there is Facebook but why is this so weighty. Like everything else.

My computer is now normal and speedy, I fixed it well :). Small things are good and great.

Amourx.

Peculiar Moment

In the middle of the night I was struck with existential fear - what have i done, and what for? Fleeing or escaping my employment like this, I realize it was one of the hooks that kept me sane and going for a while. Regular payed employment, with a status and everything.

It's hard to analyse this while I'm in it. I go back through the years ugh. Anyways, there is something about me where I think I'm supposed to do something else, and it should be great and grandiose, and all will be revealed one day, to me. But, I see where this is going, nowhere.

I tried to start writing a short story yesterday and all that came out was blabber, almost pre-language babbling. Even in automatic mode. If anything it scared me most, because I have to answer a lot of questions about what and why. Another thing too complex for my brain right now.

I think it may be better to have this fork in the road fear than to fear the little things i dealt with at work. I think I'm still a competent usable member of civilisation that will get back into it at some point. Let's just lower expectations or have none. Let's worry about the moment. Let's develop confidence. Let's be brave.

Now for the little things. Needed are a haircut, nail grooming, shoes. Time spent in person with other people. Body is tired and kind of complacent in its horizontal, comforting position on the couch. It's Saturday morning.

Possibilities are time at the spa, time with my sister, time arranged around some meeting with friends. And exercise, cause when I was writing, I could tell that's what I needed. Gym or yoga or a walk, like yesterday. Also, meditation and this journalling.

Movies. Sleep. Nap. Food. Beau wants us to have nicely planned meals next week. To engage and motivate me, is where I'm standing forth, horizontally.

I cleared about 50 gigs on my computer yesterday, now I will install the newest OS. I keep receiving newsletters I unsubscribed to, but they say it takes up to 10 days.

I think it passes by food, meditation and exercise. And maybe limit the dark movies and series. And the news. And tea. I'm ambivalent about sleep. It's a nice place to be, an escape or something.

Small steps all lined up would help. Don't you ever wish someone would stand and tell you the best choice, the best action, to take right now?

There is a gap between my self expectation, where I want to overcome everything by strength alone, and my confidence, which tells me "how dare you". I want to pull both those down and up together to close the gap. No expectations, good confidence.

Ça passe dans le don.

Ok j'ai compris.

Amourx.

Smaller and Smaller

For the record again - I'm happier than yesterday, more carefree. I don't need an agenda today - there are the mountain, the movies and the writing that await for me when I'm ready. Dinner is my sole engagement.

I am deleting fifty thousand files from my computer. I can't wait to see the space I will gain. I love this exercise. It's pretty easy my friends, I just had a lot of unused apps. I still don't know how to best handle my photo storage needs. That's too complex for my brain right now.

I'm still horizontal.

When I stepped outside to get ingredients yesterday, I had a small thrill. It is superb autumn days, they are remarkable for the blue, the red and the yellow, the heat and the crisp air. In the isle of the natural-ethnic food shop, I was travelling. It all came back.

Then I made a risotto in 6 minutes (plus prep time), in the pressure cooker. That made me happy, so did beau just because. And I went to bed early.

That is all I have to say, except remember gratitude and don't worry about anything else. Sometimes it's good to spend time in a cocoon.

Amourx.

It's Been Small

A quick record, I'm not trying to convey anything. I am on day 4 of sick leave. It happens in a way that you think you orchestrate it somehow, because you went through hoops, but then you find out that you are the patient, the receiving end of a slow-motion blow, the sufferer. Quite more impaired than when you were busy mere days ago.

It happens like that. I have been hit by a nasty cold which triggered the chain of events leading to this. At this point I don't know if my zombie state of mind is due to the lingering cold and the meds I took for it (I'm always very sensitive to those), or the antidepressants that my doctor is making me amp up. But I am indeed limited, brain wise. One thing at a time, and not too many things in a day please.

Today I'm deleting masses of emails accumulated tin my inbox through years of letting them there because I gave up. I unsubscribed to things for about an hour and I am seeing Gigs of space clearing up in real time - very satisfying! I also paid my school fees ugh, and notice that I need to give attention to my finances and catch the money that is seeping away because I give up sometimes. Or I'm overwhelmed. 9 Gigs so far and growing.

So for the record, a day is like this: I wake up early at around 7, read the papers back to back, do the crosswords (am getting good at those), fall back asleep. By early afternoon I'm thinking of what I should do, then, I do it. It's been small folks. I don't always leave the house. Today I will fetch some food and cook. Yesterday I took a yoga class before going to University - I'm still doing that.

I'm not too hungry either. I want to sleep mostly. I am kind of dizzy. I have not told anyone who doesn't need to know. I have not made plans to see my friends with all this suddenly free time. I don't seem to have the energy, but I know seeing friends would be good.

I'm surprised at how much it's hitting me and maybe my boyfriend is too. He's really supportive, but I hope it doesn't last too long. But here's the thing - I don't know what I want to come out of this. Well, I want a change and to do my thing and get payed too. That is too complex for me to think about now.

I doubt myself and can think I'm a strange girl, and can become withdrawn. That's a bad place to be. But I am hanging on and believe that resting should fix some things right?

And that was for the record,

Amourx.

Impaired

Now I'm still fearsome. I have this discomfort hanging out with me, in me. I am judging myself harshly to a point where what i do becomes a failure all the time. There's a realm of factors that affect my mood, and I have this auto sabotage thing. I hate that it isolates me, like a turtle, I just want to rest alone, away from things I despise doing for all the crap I throw at myself.

My colleagues are nice and kind, but it's so much easier not to interact. I get all worked out. This is the situation that is abnormal, that will pass, as it has in the past.

And I am accepting too. Because I don't want to write "have to" or "should" accept, but that's the case. Accept that this is all in a realm I don't control. That I need to take care of myself first.

So I had this inner stress all week-end and yesterday, physically feels like my inners are heating and melting, is the best way I can describe it. I breath with it. And I took a numbing pill on Sunday. It numbed me tired, not much else.

My period came one week late.

I bought beautiful clothes with beau. Thankfully. I feel so impaired sometimes that I wonder if it's to do with my mental condition, that I can't procure clothing for myself. But that may be a harsh judgement.

I saw friends, I had a third interview, I'm onboarding on a new exciting client, I went to school, one of my account is difficult, people wise and because I'm remote from everyone in Toronto, and I can't travel much now that I have school. And I'm still uneasy, unfitting with my current team of which I'm not a part of, of which I feel accessory and expendable for real.

I don't eat as well and I feel bigger, but I'm not pregnante.

Some deceptions don't need more than a phrase.

Amourx.

The State of Everything

Hey there,

I would like to write from the inside out like I do sometimes. It's fairly nice inside me, stable at the centre, and worn at the extremities. There is always an inflammation around the head, a lack of hydration or what not. And the fatigue that is probably quite normal.

Hmm this is not what I meant! For being cryptic I apologize. Writing from the inside is speaking from the emotions and the visceral things. Love. Fear. Feelings and how words make things up by themselves. Lyrics. I will get back to that - it's hard when you are studying the language very rationally three nights per week.

Then, I understand that I can let others, the world, do choices for me and just wait. I don't control everyting. If I was laid off I would have insurance.  I thought of being a slacker. I think my standards are too high, about what I should give and what I should preserve. And I have a slew of weird rationalization that are making this journey hard. It's called mental illness and I prefer the quainter mood disorder name - words have so much power.

Yesterday two things happened. I was invited for a third interview for another job which is quite the reverso of my current job. And, I was asked at my current job, if I would like to take on a very interesting position for a very interesting client IN THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY.

That was a bit too boldly written, since my role doesn't involve an inkling of travelling and is really about how we locals want to travel. But it could be a new job at my old job type thing.

In school well I'm enamoured with the French grammar class, disappointed that the English class level is way to easy for me, and following along Linguistics which is something I already did in the past.

I'll leave the state of everything fall where it may.

Amourx.

Mon Diamant

Je vous écris sous le vacarme d'un ordinateur qui grince à très hautes décibels.

Semaine mouvementée! J'ai eu quelques rendez-vous, trois, en plus du boulot et de l'école. Je crois que je suis au centre d'un diamant car il y a beaucoup de belles directions à prendre qui scintillent, alors que moi je suis é-pui-sée au centre et je les regarde.

Vraiment, les 2 derniers jours, voir la semaine complète, je ne pouvais travailler, me concentrer, faire une action après l'autre au boulot de jour. Je suis dans un marasme, dans l'oubli, dans le pas de la porte. C'est dur et c'est gênant. J'ai du dormir tout une avant-midi avant d'aller travailler, je vais d'ailleurs voir le médecin lundi prochain (un énième rendez-vous) car ce n'est pas normal, et j'ai du mal à tolérer les heures qui passent.

Puis j'ai eu des entrevues avec une autre firme qui sont bien allées. C'est l'antipode. Le choix s'il me font une offre pourrait être évident, mais...

J'essaie toujours d'avoir un enfant d'un mois à l'autre. Et je vais à l'école le soir pour me réorienter dans un autre domaine. Et sans oublier ma fatigue ici présente. Est-ce sage de changer de travail à ce moment. Ou juste prendre congé...

Je suis la principale salariée à la maison. Je n'ai que mes ressources personnelles, pour subvenir à tout ça. Je n'ai pas de pécule, de parents ou de mari qui puisse me couvrir pendant une période plus ou moins longue. Et je suis responsable du bien-être de ma famille avec ou sans enfants.

Pardon de vous donner un mal de tête un samedi matin.

Bref, je suis fatiguée et au plus simple, j'ai un malaise face à mon travail de jour.

L'école de soir, j'adore. Je ne la lâcherais pas pour rien au monde.

Ok c'est dur le soir la concentration et tout, mais pas grave hein? On absorbe, on apprend. C'est fabuleux les mots. Et les autres étudiants sont comme moi, studieux, curieux, concentrés, motivés et avec une vie de jour bien chargée qui peut nous donner quelque cernes. J'ai trouver ma maison.

Les autres soirs et week-end je fais mes devoirs attentivement - j'ai tellement à apprendre, c'est fou le moment où l'on voit qu'on était celle "qui ne sait pas qu'elle ne sait pas", la grammaire française particulièrement. Maintenant je le sais. Je lis une grammaire de niveau "rattrapage" en parallèle de mon cours. Je magazine les ouvrages de référence. Je me plais beaucoup dans cet univers.

Et puis je m'assoupie dans les bras de mon amour. Qu'elle chance j'ai avec cet homme, comme on s'aime.

Amourx.

Cynical Youth and the Turtle Reflex

La vie passe en rafales. I'm learning that my French grammar is excécrable. Well, there is a lot of learning to do, often by heart, of the details - the very minute details. Not my strong suite and I have spent most of my life being flippant about this. How cynical a youth I was. How's that for a phrase.

Tired me today. Stressed as usual. My fear is now... a bit of the same. Not finding my ground at work, worried about getting my head cut off. I'm having the turtle reflex, keeping locked in, and nothing will get me out of there - I still can't figure out how to talk to my boss. But I just thought of her as my little sister - that may be it. Also need to ask someone else about some feedback, for god's sake. I know my job is all about maintaing the channels of communication, but the turtle reflex is too strong.

At the same time, I have had the great gift of being referenced for a job opening somewhere else. I have an interview this week! Well... that's something quite significant and big. My old colleagues who reached out say they love this place because it's balanced and everything. And with the summer I have had, it's not a bad idea.

This could stress me more but I'm more worried about energy, how to take the time off for the interviews, etc. Juggling school and this and that. What to wear.

Inside oh I don't know. I get the channels of guilt and fear going through me at times, and I try to breath through them and figure them out. They are elusive when I do that. It's been hard to handle the quiet times, the little nothings. I spend my free time with beau doing bike rides or watching movies.

Very simple and unglamorous, and in this simplicity I do panic about what's next, what should I be doing, why am I not in euphoric bliss somewhere beautiful... or why am I not working at something I should to advance my state of being in this world. Well maybe that's what I'm doing, just resting.

Amourx.

Filon

Dear reader, the 2 or 3 of you. I apologize for changing languages at no notice from time to time. It's how it comes to me. One day if I'm asked, I will translate :).

Alors... nouveau et premier cours hier soir. Mais tout d'abord, reculons un peu. J'avais vraiment les bleus la semaine dernière. Jeudi, vendredi... Me sauver du bureau incapable de supporter d'être là, avoir honte, être figée dans l'inaction. Samedi prendre les devant pour choisir une excursion dans un spa aménagé dans des rochers et boisés magnifiques, avec une amie et mon amour. Dans ce contexte idyllique, je stressais sans fin, le moteur n'arrêtait pas. Dimanche visite chez mes deux mères, une après l'autre, leur dire que ça n'a pas marcher le bébé. Je savais que ça serait le creux.

Puis subitement lundi, je me suis mise à être mieux. Ya pas de logique.

Je surveille ce filon tout doucement car il peut partir à tout vent. Ça a été le cours hier, je peux pas dire le contraire, et ça semble gérable. Je martienne curieuse là-dedans, venant de la planète pub, observant c'est quoi aller tout doucement.

Amoux.

La Fuite, quand on la prend au vol.

Ok rapidement, hier, pas fière. Depuis jeudi j'évite le monde. Je ne suis pas allée à une sortie de travail, je ne regrette pas, j'étais bien chez moi. Jeudi et vendredi je ne tenais pas au travail, j'ai peu à faire, c'est con, ça me révolte complètement et je déguerpi. Pour faire quoi? Eh bien passer les deux jour sur mon sofa sans même sortir voir le beau temps.

Je deal très mal avec le changement, le manque de responsabilité, l'absence d'équipe, le manque de direction et l'apparence d'isolement qui, il me semble, ne vient pas que de moi. Je dois en parler à quelqu'un. Moi qui était à deux doigts de tout jeter, mais on ne peux pas jeter tout ça, il y a trop de valeur là-bas même si moi je ne suis pas bien. C'est très beau, c'est propre, y'a plein de gens intelligent et gentils, c'est près de chez moi et je suis bien payée. D'habitude quand je leur parle j'obtiens un bon retour, mais il y a toujours une haute part de danger à se confier, surtout quand on est toute défaite en partant, et pas pour des raisons propres au travail.

Secundo le retour aux études, c'est pas une blague. Je suis intéressée à fond, je lis tout ce qui est disponible sur mes cours qui commencent mardi prochain. La bio du prof, le plan de cours, les notes de cours qu'ils ont rendues disponibles. J'ai déjà tout planifié mon cheminement pour le programme entier de 60 crédits. Je me suis inscrite à 3 cours pour cette session... et ça me fait peur.

Face à mon travail, comment vais-je répondre si j'ai en théorie 27 heures d'études semaines à faire et que je ne peux plus tellement voyager à Toronto ou ailleurs?

Je pourrais en faire moins, mais considérant ce que je vie au boulot en ce moment c'est pas très motivant de se retenir.

Finalement cet isolement, on peut en parler? Je ne suis pas seule, j'ai le meilleur homme de la planète à mes côtés. Il ne semble pas me juger de mon état, sauf quand je mange comme une adolescente de 16 ans. Ce qui est une attention très mignonne. J'ai famille et amis, on s'entend. Je ne suis pas seule.

J'ai un grand mal-être par contre au boulot, qui me coupe des autres, me rend fuyante. S'en est insupportable. J'ai trop de secrets? Je suis trop secrète. Ça y'est je crois que je vais tout déballer bientôt. Le plus important, ce petit bébé que je désire tant et que je n'ai pas.

Week-end qui débute, copain qui se réveille, je la souhaite belle à tout le monde.

Amourx.

Steps

This week it's different again. I had pretty bad insomnia so Monday and Tuesday were a blur, but slept good last night. I may be grieving and scared about school - starting next week at night and I didn't tell anyone at work.

So this week my mood flavour is lonely and separated and full of secrets. I need to extravert. I'm also naturally weary of uni starting and how will I manage that energy-wise? And is it really the right thing to do? I see it's a baby step and I'm not risking much. But I need to talk outside of my smallest circle that is my boyfriend and my family. I have been sheltering in here all summer. It's ok.

I remember that all answers are inside. But how does that help me with outside people? Just a thought. I'm a little bit outside myself at work, reserved, eyes and words unsure, hesitant, when I engage. 

I've been bleeding a lot, the embryo that didn't stay. Must come with a side of depression that. I forgot to tell my mom, that it didn't work this time. I think that is tinting my mood the most. At night I've been resting, watching tv, had a drink too much once. Beau's been taking care of me and we had lovely evenings filled with nothings.

Someone wants to worry about everything else that needs doing, but I can't bother right now. Though, I want to take care of my health, and be in peace, and find solace with people around me. There is a work SUP class tomorrow, I will try that. Today there is a school faculty welcome meeting,  so long days for me.

Gratefulness meditations really helped, and I am grateful, so grateful, for my home, my love, my family, my beautiful life and the sun that shines over the world.

Amourx.

Adult Risks

I wanted to note a few things. Remembering that healing is a process and that I still struggle and it's ok.

A few things happened in the outside world. The FIV didn't take. It's a deception that's still going through me. I though it would work simply because the first time it did, and the doctors and staff always comment with some surprise on how nice and perfect and beautiful our little embryos are. Funny there is such a thing to be surprised about.

We'll do it again but friends, it's a long process to be trying and trying. It's mostly waiting. In the last two years, one full year was strictly waiting for different tests and then for a surgery I needed. Then it's waiting for the paperwork and then for the retrieval, the results, the transfer, the result, waiting for the first ultrasound of the little baby and learning he will not make it, 9 chances out of 10. Waiting to know he didn't make it, letting her go. Waiting to heal. Waiting to be ready to try again. Waiting for the waiting list for the second trial and since that didn't work, I'm waiting for my next appointment to start over.

We are learning to put other things in our lives to sustain all this waiting. I have been admitted to the translation certificate at university! I'm starting next week. Beau may start studying too, I hope he will, since he also needs to find his path.

It's hard to think about not ever having children while we are still trying. But we know it could happen, and then I don't know what we'll do, cause I can live with it but maybe I don't want to take that from him. And that's the saddest thought, because maybe he can also live with it. But we both have so much love to give and so in any way it would be a grievance. And as we're trying we create grievances along the way. That's life.

I thought that also, I could try to live the "adult" life too. Have an adult house, adult car, adult engagements, take adult risks. Dunno. Sometimes I admire it in others and wonder how they do it. I know there is so much we can do in world travels and expansion and humanitarianism and so on...

Finally just wanted to add something about the inner world. When I meditate unguided, I often get an image. A black bird, a darkness sometimes. It can also be a beautiful guiding light. Once I meditated in the evening and was fearful, I felt a presence in the house, but that's a one off. But what I wanted to say was that I pay attention to the feelings and they came on Saturday in yoga class.

I was doing may soothing positions and felt deeply relaxed and integrated, until we got on our fours and told to put our shoulders down to the mat but keep our butt up. Awkward position in which I fidgeted. Then we had to thread one arm through the other and twist our shoulders to the side, even more awkward. My shoulder compressed and my butt in the air and... a surge of sadness came, a cry of help in a soundproof prison. A result of an abuse that I can't understand. A secret. Something I had to keep hidden as it occupied me completely, hurting, pleasing, confusing, humiliating if spoken.

I don't need to remember any detail. I write in past tense intently. I have a spectrum of these feelings and they can come out. But I don't need to understand them, this is what I'm learning today, and how I think I can let go.

Amourx.

Hymn

In the sea of little nothings, things are not happening as I planned this morning, insomnia paid me a visit. It's only day three since I'm back to work and there is a fortress of protection and resistance in me. I have been going to bed really early, at nine-ish, sleeping it off.

I didn't meditate yet. My plan was to wake up at 6am as usual and do my mudra, have my coffee, meditate... but I slept through it. Woke up with beau, I love him so much.

It's only 8am. I'm staying home this morning because builders are coming to fix two of my windows -- which have been ajar and inoperable all summer. Afterwards we will clean the city grime out of them. It will be nice.

Working from home is a break; I should make use of it regularly. My colleagues are really nice and of course useful, but the 9 to 5 at my office is tiring me.

I notice the robber-like guilt and dread occupying me when I get home, when I get away from my tasks. I should note that that is not my whole life, it doesn't occupy all my hours. It's a small fraction of my day. Seeing it this way, I can start seeing my life as more, much more, than these painful visits. And that may key away depression.

While the aura of guilt hangs, I note what I've been doing. I watched a documentary about the Yangtze with beau. I drank alcohol-free beer and wine which where surprisingly good. I ate fresh corn on the cob from the market, so delicious, and I read a bit of a manual about translation. I bathed, I wrote, I filled the dishwasher.

Why do I endure guilt about doing those things? It doesn't add up.

Yesterday in my unguided meditation, an impulse to act came as a stable, positive cry, and morphed into a hymn! There was no pangs. I hope to do the 45 min. guided body scan today, maybe before I head back to work.

I am quite tired and hoping for a lazy, leisurely day. Wouldn't that be nice.

Amourx.

Like a Robber

I got home and ate the duck soup that beau left on the counter, spaghetti all tangled up on one side, broth with floating parts of dislocated greasy duck in the other. Then I inhaled two pieces of baguette dug in, bite after bite, the hummus tub, until there was hummus no more. Then, I finished an auld piece of cheese (I write auld this way when it feels really old, it amuses me).

This looks like a relapse but this is the Monday evening after the Monday return to work after the vacation. It's fitting. I'm not pleased but forgiving. It was not so bad, the highlight of the day was the heat wave that makes you go all slow and melty. There was also a violent car crash involving an assisted living travelling bus and a car, both smashed pretty hard, in the heat wave.

I noticed how I fled during lunch and even at night. Like a robber. With blown up guilt and heart too big and a propensity to busy my mind with other things or eat. I slept during lunch listening to a podcast. I slept really deeply even though I woke up at every 2 minutes to check the time. I took a nearly 2 hour lunch.

There is no rational for this nervousness. I always feel outside myself at work, though today was not particularly bad. In fact it was very good, uneventful, friendly, and calm, come to think of it. Always better to get to it and at it. Tune your attitude in. That way I may fall back inline with myself and with everyone. That would be nice.

I see I have come some way since the panicky paralyzing attacks of a few weeks back. I am still edgy, but more remotely. I don't cry just by reading the stories in the papers. I'm not as seized as I was, though the anxiety is still there.

I did 45 min. body scan meditation this morning. It's the third time. It is powerful but the length and repeating makes me antsy. I may alternate it with the shorter 20 minutes unguided meditation, because that one tells me things too.

Balance is always what I need to return too, while the context is always shifting. Yesterday's leisurely and sometimes fearfully empty days are replaced with my gainful employment, and all the catastrophic employment scenarios I think of are not happening. Maybe life can just be a bit still and uneventful for me now.

While I'm waiting for my admission test results, to find out if I'm accepted for night school. I dawns on me that it will be hard to attend at night, but I'm doing things one step at a time. Baby steps.

Time passed, last week, with all its uneventfulness... reading, walking, laying. Being with beau, despite my malaise in front of the void, and my tensions that crept out in the daylight, that traveled to him and back, well that was all very nice. And I am so proud of all the little moments, the decisions, the enjoyment we had out of very simple, unglamorous, nothings (which hold everything).

Amourx.

Precious Things

Early morning and the plan is to pack and leave for a week-end getaway with my love. I'm so lucky. We could go North, South, East, or West... The weather is not on our side, but it's pointing West. Beau is still sleeping.

Where am I? The other day's meditation told me that it would be very, very long. That I have to enter another dimension of time, to tap into the things that are my questions. It also told me that my father truly loved me. I knew that, but I remembered how much. And also that he needed so much love that he didn't get. He needed soothing, affection, someone to hold him close and tell him that everything would be ok. He the child, me the kin. He was in perpetual distress and we left him there, me and my three sisters, to save ourselves.

The world is quite magical in that it brings to me stories related to my interior journey. An article about a woman who's mother was her abuser, how the adult daughter deals and loves her mother. A new novel I started in which the main protagonist is a translator. My boyfriend found on Facebook that a long lost acquaintance from University who now lives in France, an engineer at the time, became a successful translator from Polish to French. Prior to that news I had paid attention to his translated book, a biography, well displayed in the library. I wonder what it's like to be a translator.

The book that I am slowly reading about MBSR is not entertaining, but it is very enlightening. It says that healing is not the same as curing. Your ailments, your chronic stresses and pains, don't dissolve, don't go away when you are healing. You don't cure them,  but you gain a bigger, higher perspective on them. They become part of a bigger system, of life. They have some meaning. And with this perspective you have acceptance, grace. And possibly your ailments can become tolerable, smaller, easier or even just accepted. You have gained a higher vision with lots of other things in it, you are no longer your disease, you are much more then that, you are the whole world and the whole space and the whole time, encapsulated in you, interconnected in the fabric of the world.

I have been thirsty for good stories of quests and self realization. They teach me and support me and accompany me. I read Wild and Want Not, bot excellent and good for me. Want Not is a masterpiece to me. You don't always know with books. A lot of them are sad and depressive, I think the majority are, I wonder why. Maybe to help us relate or gain perspective that some have it much worst? I'm not immune to those those dark, troublesome, psychological stories of crime, of brutal violence. They can be attractive, and mostly they are just so prevalent, but I should consume them less than I do wine, and I'm pretty much done with wine.

Spent the day with sister yesterday, had a long and lovely walk, a bite, then came home and found some clothes that was bought for me, to try on. Beau and his mom do that for me. I know how much this is precious.

Amourx.

Everything Done in the Dark

We did it, for the second time, and it was beautiful. It looked like a galaxy inside of me, La Voie Lactée... I don't really have the words, but I'm reminded that in the outside world it's peak Perseides day tonight.

I am contented and calm, with many other layers interfering. That's normal. That's how everybody works. I'm no different. The calm part of me feels like a relaxed plane inside me, spacious, released, incline to make me smile. It's an inner smile I think. It's soft and subtle.

Yesterday I was quite nervous and aside from being with beau at the clinic, aside from going to see bikes for him and books for me (I bought three books from Quebec authors, and it happens to be "buy a Quebec book day" today. He wasn't please about that excess --I have a book buying habit), and having the walk, and eating good food with him, I read all day until late at night and finished the book I started the day before, the Girl on the Train.

Feelings where not great you know. This is a book with mentally ill people speaking in first person, journal style. It won't be described that way in general but that's how it inhabited me. I was eager to finish it as much to find out who did it as to get out of the depression and distress that the main characters live. It was well done, I could relate, and for some time I felt uneasy. Thinking back now, it's quite horrific. Plus, it had a lot of the worst baby related stories at the core. Probably not good prescriptive reading haha. But I've finished it now and it was a good read, even if a bit painful, it's over and I'm happy, if I refer to what I wrote upstairs.

So yeah I got depressive and fearful moments along the way too. Judgment. I caught that and named it, because this type of feeling where I sort of dread the next choices I have to make and the lack of time and the fear of going back to it, is laced with judgment. Maybe if I just pay attention to all the judgment, it would help me dislodge it.

The walk was an out of this world experience. There is a place in the heart of the city, with trees as big as in the deepest Canadian forest, surrounding houses with large yards by a wide park with trails leading around a clearing, with train tracks going through, taking us to rows of triplexes and backstreets, to derelict industrial buildings painted all over in graffiti, to inner city park where my mom and dad posed for the photo when they were together a long time before I came. Everything done in the dark holding his hand in wonder.

Amourx.

Nor my Stories, Nor my Plans

Every day is different. When I wrote yesterday I wasn't at my best, I was trying to do something, and writing often helps but in some cases it reaffirms the very condition I'm trying to get out of.

In Woody Allen's last movie Irrational Man, the anti-hero says that anxiety is the disease of freedom or something like that. In front of the emptiness of freedom, in the absence of a set course, we freak out. It's true.

But today it's not like that. It's early morning and I returned to my mudra for serenity and harmony, which also causes imaginary gardens to grow abundantly, and I became sort of clearer. Literally I "saw" the colour within turn brighter. Today I am having a baby.

Today I am again open and ready to see, to find, the beautiful simple things.

I am multi-layered though - I tap into that beautiful realm, but there are also all the other forms of stresses. One of them, oddly, is that I feel I should plan my mother's 70th birthday better than my sisters already have. Yet I resist it completely, like I don't feel ready.

One of them is when I accidentally checked my work email. I'm blocking that out quite willingly.

I monitor the pangs of anxiety, and I like to describe their multiple flavours, like yesterday in my French post, it was auld hollow tree like. I think in the course of the last 48 hours I have felt it within my breathing pipeline, kind of a warning warmth that I try to figure out. I've had pangs located near my heart, and I've had spikes when I raise into sudden alertness like something's gonna happen to me if I don't.  Feels like I've done something so wrong, and I've been so stupid, and I better  make it right, right away, or else I will lose everything. This is familiar, that feeling. Feels like the whole world is about the break down maybe because of me. Like I have the power to break everything that's good and make it miserable for eternity, hell. A terrible mistake.

I'm reading the Girl on the Train book and the girls portrayed here are lost like I have been in the past. I don't know if it's good for my spirit to be with them and revisit that, but I get them.  I paused from watching that gruesome series. But for these girls I see that I'm not alone, that it's probably common, I even read a story about a girl like that in the papers today, who bought a home on the internet to get away from her pain. Sometimes I imagine everyone's heart big like mine, too big, sensitive and vulnerable, and it appeases me. Maybe everyone's heart is like mine, and I don't need to keep mine a secret, nor my stories, nor my plans.

But friends, I didn't just casually drop that I was having a baby up there above this digression. I am! The embryologist just called me to say everything is well and ready, and to show up at 2 o'clock with a full bladder and my love.

Amourx.

French

Je suis dissipée. C'est ça le mot? Je ne l'utilise jamais, mais en ce moment le voici. Aujourd'hui l'anxiété a texture de veille arbre, vielle âme asséchée ou sorcier. Je regarde un série télé pas mal glauque, peut-être pour ça. C'est congé pour moi et je me repose, j'observe le terrible battement de tambour des guerriers intérieurs, culpabilisants et bloquants, qui me gardent au beau fixe justement, et si j'arrive à les faire fuir je serai tout en sérénité. Je souris, car un sourire fait beaucoup en ce sens.

Même si je crois avoir trouvé ma voie en l'espoir de retourner à fond, le plus vite possible dans les lettres et la traduction, l'anxiété demeure. C'est très stimulant et satisfaisant de croire qu'on a trouvé la réponse, la clé qui fera tout mieux aller, et mes journées sont très belles, et ma maison plutôt propre. Mais j'ai besoin de faire ou d'éviter de faire en même temps, je me pousse et me tire, et avec l'insomnie et les 5-6 médicaments que je m'injecte, avale ou colle sur ma peau, je peux pas trop m'en vouloir de retomber dans le doute anxieux, quand je suis devant le vide d'une journée libre ou pas, et d'apprécier le repos quand même.

C'est clair que j'ai besoin d'écrire. J'irai peut-être au massage, mais non tiens, le yoga serait mieux. Bref, vivement une idée, un projet, une tranquillité, une sieste, une occupation, un agrément, ou l'acceptation tout simplement.

Ok, j'accepte.

Amourx.

Go!

I'm writing quickly because I am not alone, we are on holiday me and my beau in my little apartment, on holiday. This morning I weighed myself and lo I am nine pounds lighter than about a month ago! What a nice feeling. This will fluctuate but it's a definite sign that my eating of small meals is paying off. I think this effect is linked to the meditation I do everyday. I am very happy!

Also happy because I completed the French and English admission exam yesterday. A full three hour affair in the auditorium of the Uni, the same one I went to some fifteen years ago for my first graduate degree. They have added plugs for laptops since. Internet was barely used at that time, and Google didn't exist. Every moment of this journey towards becoming a translator, that wasn't even an inkling of thought last month, feels like a clear and straight path that is self evident, self fulfilling, like I found the key about ten days ago.

Brings about a lot of joy and enthusiasm in me and beau is also thrilled. Now we have to find something for him --but meanwhile my path is not a short one, it's a second graduate degree on a part-time schedule.

And, FIV is in 2 days. Can you see me holding my baby with one hand and translating with the other? I certainly do.

Amourx.

In Letters

I changed my Mudra today to a centering and strenghtening one. Why? Because the one I was previously doing worked so well it's almost spooky, and also because I have anxiety resurfacing strongly this week. Here are the things that I learned.

I think I can start to describe different types, different layers of anxiety. Like the sediment crusts of archeology, some textures and flavours of anxiety may stem from this or that period in my development, who knows.

This week's flavour is high schoolish. Like i'm not at my place, not good or pretty enough, about to be shot down by the cool girls and expulsed. There are actually two beautiful young women in my team who just came back from break. They cause my anxiety, specially my new boss. She is almost an archetype in her perfection in brains, expression and looks. I don't envy her, but I feel small and disintegrated, in contrast. I think that likewise she feels awkward with me. Easier for me to leave than stay at it.

On Saturday at 5am I was up because I couldn't sleep, that's not so unusual. I went everywhere in my home searching from my school documents, because somewhere along the previous 48 hours I had decided to apply to university in translation!!

In my red file I found old tax reports and outdated stuff from when I had an apartment on the Plateau and a cat. In my filing cabinet I found stacks of bills from old credit cards and phone lines. Where could my school documents be...

In two storage chests I found old drapes, books, art supplies, a lot of photos and negatives from my college stunt in photograpy, and some paintings I made. Still no school report to be found.

In the fireproof storage box that I was given at 13, where many eras of journalling. I sat and read through the first pages of each book. I visited a time in my twenties when I escaped to Scotland to rekindle my previous experience there and found a lover. My teens where I talked about boys and sleeping with them like I knew what I was doing. Trying to impress someone (me?) and hide behind a camp maturity.

I read beautiful poems too, of my time in uni. I found letters from papy zen, a man in France met on the internet, who used to correspond in long letters with me and help me out of my distress. I found notes on a forgotten therapy I held with a social worker for a while.

I found notes during my period of struggle to find myself in my later twenties, when there seemed to be no one, no job, no money, no prospect, no friends, no lover. I still regard that period as an marathon of suffering in an apparent bottomless pit. But I know how I got out of that, and I am equally pleased by that fact.

And always, at every epoch, repetitive expression of distress and anxiety and trying to figure out what was happening, analyzing, discovering, encouraging, confiding. It could be disturbing to find so much text like this if I wasn't sane throughout. Today I am here again but it is better.

I found my school reports in my portfolio from my stint in photography college. I filled out the application for a certificate in Translation and by 10am, the course of my life that I had just revisited completely was officially starting to change again.

I can feel the streams of that future flowing, this idea of becoming the translator was the key and I just took it and jumped. This realization came so fast, that's why I say it's spooky, but it's not really.

I have always been in letters, I have always written, I am the facto a translator. I am soothed by the thought of returning to school. I am studying avidly for my admission test of french and english. I am unafraid of losing my current job, and raising children, while my work will be spent in letters.

This is a humble path. I'm glad.

And now I'm off to the doctor's, to find out when i get the IVF which should be in the next 10 days if the ultrasound agrees. Then I will be pregnant... hard to believe it!

Amourx.

My Saul

Nothing is ever the same day after day. I have slightly less intense pangs of anxiety, that's good. I'm cultivating patience, serenity, inner balance, confidence in my mudra since yesterday. It seem to work and I hope it keeps on today.

I was able to spend the whole day, the whole hours at my desk. Doing things needed to be done. Nothing I do is difficult, but there is so much emotion around them - stress, fear, worry, anxiety... Often feels like I'm not in my true place. I'm actually an impersonator. A very shy one.

People have said I'm very strong like a rock, calm and focused leading my projects all the way to their destination. A quiet force. Most people like working with me, they have said. But this summer I fell out of myself and lost all my bearings and confidence. I disintegrated. I am thankful that in fact, my tasks where easy if not unpredictable.

I felt this way in Asia, 15 years ago on a 4 month trip. Asia was beautiful, I was traveling alone, lonely, probably scared too, and after many breakdown sort of days I realized that Asia wasn't my place in the world at that moment. That made it easier for me to accept what was going on, that it's not going to be a walk in the park. Loneliness was my biggest hurt. I stayed anyway, it got better or I changed my attitude and made some friends along the way.

I looked at colleges program's where I could teach, and I was discouraged. These technical courses seem miles away in my past, I don't have confidence but even more I don't feel interest in teaching those specific courses. Maybe I didn't look enough, maybe I looked at it the wrong way.

I feel like I want a body of knowledge and authority in a field that improves human condition, acceptance and communication. I want to have it, translate it, teach it and propel it in the world.

My ideals and perfectionism and all that.

I looked at translation programs, maybe this would be a good course, appeasing and well directed. No choices to make for 2 years, just learn, be in letters, then just translate away. Seems simple. Studying is interesting me now, but it should be a course that is clearly associated with real life work returns. Also something I can do at night.

While I'm pregnant perhaps. Lover would like to wait, he's stressed about debts and he's also going back to school I hope. Why not live like poor young bucks in love and with child. Children even. Seems like a good course to me. I know it's stressful for my dear love.

If we can continue to manage the household. Looks like we have established some good habits this summer. Dishes and clothing are put away everyday. He has done a lot of cleaning bless him. We can only continue like this.

All this to say that yesterday was ok inside and also in conversations that I had with my peers, the few of them who are actually at work, it's such a low season. Nothing else changes, I meditate, I breath, I take a bike ride to my Saul, and I eat only what I need (and clean up the dishes). It's hard to plan further than that, transitions into the week end, into vacation, into motherhood.

My Saul looks like this - I may post a picture of the real one someday.

Gradation

Wednesday, pivot day. Sitting on my eternal sofa feeling a bit buzzed in the background. Perhaps my medication is starting to kick in, coupled with my coffee.

My days are different this week. I've been free from deadlines personally, only managing a very autonomous team at distance, and had some time. There was supposed to be stuff done about being the perfect employee, catching up and cleaning up. But I took my bike and went home and read instead.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon really just chilling at a studio where I didn't absolutely need to be. But I enjoyed the comradeship of this team, and also the long bike ride to and fro, in the highest heat of summer.

I may not know the gradation between overwhelmed and normal.

I beat myself up about it too. Well in better terms it ignites fear, panic, and brutal judgment. Maybe this panic is more accessible if I am not overwhelmed, if I have space and time to feel it. In my free time during the worst saturdays and sundays, I had that panic paralysis. I didn't know what to do. Conflicted by fear that pushes me where I resisted to go. The best things I did when that happened was when I picked up a few things around the house, did a quick bike ride and created an exquisit meal.

I see that coming now at work and I know that in the state I'm in, if I can quietly do the cleaning and closing and sorting out that I need to do, it is enough. My fear will make me ask for what's next and what's more. I'm bizarrely afraid of the new structure too, two people coming back from vacay, feel like they will find out how I lagged and lacked. I have to be so patient and accepting of myself. Even if I end up breaking down at work.

Sometimes, usually, things fix themselves up at work. But yesterday we lost another 15 year old client. Everybody, it seems, is talking about leaving. I wasn't there when they announced, but the leaders are maybe alone in their faith. It's pretty dire but that's the bottom of it.

Back to myself, i appreciate the meditation work I'm doing. Feels like there is so much to discover, as gently as it needs to be. I fear today, and next week, but I will take it bit by bit like I do on week-ends.

I was given choice to go to a shoot in the UK! But scheduled during the IVF... so I was with this debate, but today I was revoked that choice, I think. Now it's in Budapest at another date. Anyway, it will be easy to do my IVF in a August, it would of been hard to delay that.

Overall, not too bad. I'm definitly gettying better.

Amourx.

Less is Less

I had a lovely week-end. Bookended with stressy work stuff but in between, there was yoga and nails and a long bike ride in the caressing sun. There was my beau waking me with coffee in the Cubita cups. A walk in a different neighborhood with people watching, ice cream (sorbet for me) and a drink in the loveliest terrasse of the loveliest corner where every culture meet in grace at Hutchison & Fairmount.

Oh and a beautiful and sooo tasty dish of lamb and porc chops on vegetables. The taste blew us away. It must have been the combination of slow cooked meat juice, dijon mustard and that corse pink salt from the Andes.

I may be getting better. I have these pangs of stress that wake me and take over. I observe these and they fleet but sometimes I catch judgements. They would be judgements of my wrongdoing or wrongbeing, but this is a very fleeting impression, then I have this bleh feeling or malaise that I probably push out as fast as possible. If I follow this sequence rationnaly the judgment leads to shame of being and fear of doing. But this is getting ahead of myself because when I meditate or when I breath through the pangs, I mostly feel the fear.

Meditating is like taking a warm bath. I feel renewed and relaxed afterwards. I look forward to it, to find out how am I doing today. It created some space and I see that's what is needed to calm myself and to work through my troubles. My troubles are linked to having too much, work, food, information, paperwork, clutter, drinks, stress... Creating some time for nothing is healing. Eating less food, being mindful about it, is also a pleasant effect that is calming and connecting me to my body.

This body is still miles away from this head, but they are reaching out and still want to be together.

Amourx.

Day x

Would be nice to say Day x. Since I started to rewrite, like the days that appear at the begining of each The Killing episodes, as they try to solve the murder.

My mornings have a pattern now. I make coffee and sit and do mudras as it drips. Mudras are the most esoteric practice that I do, but I found that they work like magic. They are hand gestures or poses, like yoga asanas. It comes from ancient practices around the world. You have seen these in praying people, officiators and dancers, but there are a wide variety for various ailments. I have a book full of them and what they do. I simply sit adopting the one that feels right this week, and meditate as guided by the book.

This week is for assertiveness, but I can never think that word outright. I stumble or get awareness instead. But some confidence, stability and assertiveness is what I'm calling for. Even now I write awareness instead and track back to correct it. Maybe something's going on :-).

Then I read or write a bit here or in my other meditation program notes. This is a gratitude based guided meditation I do in the evening --I'm binging. I will then do a 15 minute unguided MBSR meditation. This is Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, you can find books about it. It is a program to overcome mental illness like depression, anxiety and PTSD or chronic pain. It is different in that it is very secular. It does not bring the buddha or christ or sanskrit mantra's in the practice. It makes it a bit dry but good because everyone can adhere without having to give and take some.

Anyway I do 15 minutes of unguided meditation in the morning, lying on a mat with a towel rolled up that props up my back a bit as I hope to open my shoulders against the hunch and my propensity to go fetal position all the time.

Then I get ready and eat a small meal, often 2 boiled eggs.

So what does that do to me? I find it as I unravel my days as they come. I found that wednesday was a turning point because in the evening, the fear finally took a break and let me be for a while. I also saw my fear in my colleague's expression. I find him so uncompassionate normally that it felt like an odd transfer that actually relieved me. And I unknotted a negotiation, did the "hard" things at work (everything is hard in this state) and ended up feeling a bit free.

This week we have one more colleague leaving and another one burning out on temp leave for a month. Everyone is affected by these hardships. Thank god that there are dogs visiting the office everyday. It's like dog-therapy, every dog owner bringing their dogs to work.

Touching wood, work was easier yesterday and I will try to let myself take the downtime to close files and tidy up until my vacation. Anxiety and pure workload never let me do this, so it won't be that easy. I also use the downtime out - literally taking longer breaks, shorter hours.

Inside I may be calmer but something is still creeping. It's ok. This is my rational brain talking today - it's more interesting when it comes from inside. I will go to it now.

Amourx.

Repair

An update. I'm still traversed with constant painful and paralysing feelings. I went home yesterday to work from there but mainly to rest. I couldn't deal. I called for help, we have a support system that offers psychology, orientation and other services for free, for us in the communication industry. The first time I had hear of it I thought it was very surprising, that people of the industry, so "well-off" and well insured, needed a free support system. And that some people had built one. And here I am in distress and happy that these people will probably understand my condition like no other.

My voice broke during the call and after I received appointments for a career conselor and a psychologist, after I hung up, I broke down in big sobs. I figure this is good.

I am diligent at the meditation practice in the morning, in the evening, when I think about it during the day. I believe in it. I think I feel the change or the potential of change. It makes for a sobering life. I worry about my relationship. Am I so changed by my condition that I am no longer a star candidate, am I too serious about fixing it. I cut on drinking and watch what I eat, and I don't socialize much. This is kind of serious living, not so carefree and lively anymore.

And we are having IVF soon. I realised I started my hormones 2 weeks too early. Fuck if that helps anything!! But the nurse said I could go on with the protocol anyway.

In the daily meditation of the MBSR book I'm following, when I'm not "guided" my mind wanders away most of the time. I'm trying to access the depth of me, the solid one, and I'm not sure It's like I'm knocking on the door. But then I just breath cause that's all i'm supposed to do. Maybe journal too, I should check. I'm not rigourous because I'm also doing a 21 day gratitude based guided meditation at the same time.

Plus reading books, novels. I think that's a soothing thing to do too.

I'm not sure what I wanted to say here today. Sometimes I feel a sadness at the end of my breaths. I think there is room for repair.

Amourx.

Colville

Hello there. Taking fifteen minutes on a mac that definitly needs some maintenance, as I'm trying to recuperate 4 years of photos from Michal's old phone.

I had a verly lovely, beautiful summer week-end including a day trip on a train to ottawa to visit the Alex Colville exhibit - loved it, a bike ride, a family dinner and a still clean house. Weather and everything was great. On the inside I'm still not great or beautiful but I think this is not the goal, I think you don't always be great or beautiful inside, and when I have those so numerous moments in the past it's because I am blessed.

Learning to be gentle and kind to myself inside, I think is the biggest hurdle. Acceptance. I have faith, and imagination, and beautiful feelings and visions along the way. I feel deep calm sometimes when I meditate. Couldn't connect with my belly as much - it's like somewhere else, so I'll keep inquiring.

Amourx.

Balancing Act

My computer is making very distracting noises and pages take a while to load, bear with me.

It's saturday, funeral and work has past, and I'm up early for a trip to Ottawa by train with my mother and sister, to visit the Alex Coleville exhibition. That is a very nicely planned day.

My anxiety was in force again all week. I worked very late on Monday and Thursday night - nothing difficult. I don't remember Tuesday and Wednesday was the funeral (I slept all afternoon that day, it was good for me).

I don't remember much but I can talk about yesterday. A great fear in my body and around my heart, on my skin and in my breath, for a danger that doesn't exist. I walk around and do my tasks and talk with my pears carrying this. When I sit at my desk it's like that too. Making it hard to do one simple thing at a time.  

It could be called great stress too. I've seen it in others at times, and mine shows i'm sure. But I notice that the people whom I'm the most nervous about (mostly everybody at this point) are not excluding me. They are kind. They even respect my timid presence. They answer every question with attention. They do everything that needs to get done beyond what I must tell them to do (that's my job). They... are very nice people. And I'm terribly afraid to speak my mind, but I still do.

I took a calming pill for the first time in my life yesterday. Not sure what you call them - they are "as needed" but you don't want to get used to them. It helped, the afternoon went a bit easier and then I rested. The other meds that I started taking won't kick in for another 3-5 weeks, we'll see.

I regret that I didn't exercise or do yoga, or have long bike rides, since I went to Charlevoix. In combination with my body enlarging and bulging (holly thighs! holly boobs!),  that makes dressing up and shopping a hard exercise, I worry. I eat whatever too, I do that when I'm stressed.

This body change may have to do, on top of natural aging, with my fertility treatment - i'm doing IVF. One could say that this is a stressful, life altering program that maybe is contributing to my mood condition. I don't know - feels natural and positive to me. But I miscarried in March. And I'm about to start over, have 2 patches of estrogen on my body at all times currently, hormones are definitely changing me. 

I'm good at meditating though, and I will keep at it. It helps. When I am not meditating, I hope that I can outplay the drowsy comfort of being still. Maybe next week - one step at a time, I also have to be kind, patient and accepting with myself.

Amourx.

Humility

Today. I have lost a lot of peace, my anxiety has shot through the roof it seems, but I am still functioning. It feels like pain inside, how the printer won’t work, how emails are assaulting me, how I can’t get it together. I bump into contundent corners, I speak faux pas. I have an unbearable timidity that is governed by fear of something.

It was showing its head for a long time now, at every good or bad change I went through at work. With the climate, with everyone leaving, with the industry or that place being ran over by newness that it can’t keep up with. 

Now I feel not anchored nor supported; but I lost the capacity for decisions, for actions. Something terrible happened in my surrounding. A baby not one year old, killed, by his father. Just this phrase is unbearable, I fear to traumatize people like it does me. There has been a wake and a funeral is to come. 

Of course this is worsening my state of anxiety and in this grieving and recovering from a shock that I couldn’t fathom--but the family is strong and loving and will come through, and that relieves me--I find some kindness within to let me be imperfect, awkward and limited at work. I have stopped social activities but they can wait.

My thinking head, so disconnected from my heart and body, has ideas and knows resources. I went to the doctor’s and asked for the medication that has proven to work. Now I am writing and reading self help things about meditation, then I do it my way for a few minutes. I do have exercise and nature in my horizon but they are playing a minor role today.

More boldly, my thinking head and my body have determined that I should change careers again. Every part of me is at peace with this. I chose teaching in college as something natural, doable, and good for me. For the regularity of it, the breaks, the fulfilment probably. So I can be appeased from the constant changes. So that what I do has meaning and depth. I lost the meaning and the depth I need in my current job.

Maybe as a teacher, I will have time to do other things I like such as writing. Maybe I can just rest my quiet head and tap into my self and be at peace. Maybe that’s enough.

But you know, meanwhile I am getting pregnant again very soon. It takes 9 months, I’m sure that I can heal along the way. I already feel better, just took in a deep breath.

In this state of anxiety, I live with a fear of everything, a dooming fear of the worst shame or worst sins or hurting someone or being hurt.  But then it’s just email or the printer, so I do what I have to do. It’s must harder when I need to think, expose my rational and engage others, but I still try to do it. And worst when I interact with the end clients or end consumers - I just don’t want to, but I still go through the motion.

Imagine that I had to host japanese colleagues and clients for the last few days, working all hours on a shoot with a team. Thankfully I could be kind of “accessory”  because my team is so strong and good. But I’m a director, and a perfectonist, and it’s hard for me to be that way. 

Humiliation is probably the thing I fear the most, I live my life to avoid it. No one in my entourage is mean enough to abuse the situation that way, it’s very much an exaggerated fear. I find I can replace it and think about humility, and kindness to myself just like my peers are kind to me.

So this idea of changes of career, I don’t know how or when. I filled out a digital application though! And my step-mom will help, I have an army of teachers in my family. I know that I’m gifted when it comes to learning and probably teaching, and going through the hoops to get in. But, my work, the funeral, is enough to handle for this week.

Amourx.

Apprivoiser la bête

Mercredi et des soubresauts dans mon corps. Une fébrilité hypersensible, qui me fait vivre des émotions forte tout le temps. Je crois que c’est mon état normal. Je le joue en me plongeant dans diverses activités, en prenant du recul, en tranchant mon temps et j’en garde pour le repos. 

Le soleil a plombé hier lors du lunch où j’ai parlé du Costa Rica, mon voyage au pays des merveilles, à ma collègue.

Disons que j’ai les sens à vif, c’est ce que je remarque dans mes billets du passé, les petites paroles et gestes me pénètrent et sont senti comme des affronts ou des dangers. Cette lecture est probablement très subjective, mais les effets ne le sont pas.

Par contre j’apprivoise bien ça en ce moment, je suis heureuse et encouragée par le regain d’énergie que j’ai. Je me sens très bonne guerrière, et je n’arrête pas d’y porter attention.

Par exemple je cherche des occasions de vivre d’avantage, de m’exprimer - pas envers les autres, mais sur cette planète, en ce monde, je surveille les occasions de devenir la personne que je suis, si ça fait du sens. Par exemple ça peut passer par l’écriture.

Pour ce qui est de m’exprimer envers les autres, je le fait beaucoup plus spontanément cette année. Il s’est passé quelque chose. Je me suis cachée dans le passé, de honte, de peur ou pour me protéger. Je sors de ça.

Voyez, je suis heureuse! En amour, en famille, en amitiés et je m’en sors pour ce qui est de gagner ma vie. Je souhaite de tout coeur que cette spirale continue dans son sens. Le cercle virtueux ça existe. Pour moi c’est une quête de sens (meaning). Est-ce que ce qui est en moi s’exprime dans le monde et laisse une empreinte, de bonté, d’entraide, de truth sayer.

Ça a l’air d’être des voeux pieux, mais ça doit s’appliquer à l’intérieur de moi d’abord. Je veux m’appliquer à être bonne envers moi-même, une bonne amie qui construit du courage pas du sabotage, et j’ai une pulsion de dire ou de décrier ce qui es tu.

Comme l’inéquité bordel.

Amourx.

Emergencies

It’s Monday evening and I feel energized, felt like this all day. Also for once I’m not in too deep at work, and I almost get the jitters - i’m not used to this and it’s clear that I don’t have the meds anymore, so I react with a kind of intense speed at doing things and some wonder of what this feels like (new) and some worries about how I’m doing.

I came home and scarfed down some cheese and tortillas. My body’s been a bit whacked lately, its tired but it can’t stop being awake and wants to jump into what’s next like there’s an emergency. It’s my emergency to live, and I let it do that.

I also have to give me credits for this energy, because I have been constantly keeping active with gym and bike rides, or walks into nature, and I found a new Yoga place to round it up. These walks and rides in the sun mean everything to me, make me feel so alive.

Am I high? Do you think?

This evening I pulled away from work at a decent time and now I’m to do something that relaxes and feeds into my desires. Sounds easy, but it’s easier to pass this by I think. My beau has arrived, so I will bid farewell.

Amourx.

Kind

A lot is up it seems, and I have to write - not out of an impulsion, but because of the good it does to my mind, to sort things out. And also because looking back there are a lot of kernels of wisdom that I recorded in the blogs, my own kind of school.

I recently understood that my truth in life, my dharma, is about kindness, empathy and helping each other find out if we are all happy to be together. My father once wrote this to me on a piece of paper, something about cells in my body reaching out to the others, to find out if we are all still there, and still want to be together. I’m also the truth sayer, finding and revealing the tension of what is unsaid. This is my purpose I believe.

I can and must apply it to myself internally too. My life has been a roller coaster, but this path is my level. It came to me lately in the last year after reading about dharma, but also, you know, all this introspection that i do constantly.

I read backwards that I am scared to hurt others, I thread lightly in adversity with others, I am unbalanced in conflict, making it hard to support. In my natural, medication-less state, I read a lot of imminent conflict or aggression into other peoples pretty normal behaviours. If I strip out the whole journey that took me to today, I may call this a sort of social phobia. I don’t know if it helps to call it that.

I have stopped medications 2 months ago. I’ve had a life & death situation happen in winter, and coming out of this, i found an incredible compulsion to live to the fullest. I have it now, a rolling fire, that completely changes my attitude. I’m in a state of emergency to live, but also in appreciation of what I have, and understanding that I have to be kind to myself.

It’s not something I chose, not something that is reflected in my life today, but its just coming from the essence of me.

So I happen to be more active, more energized, more engaged in the very fast paced life that I have. I worry about balance, this is in my line of sight too. Not that I am doing to much, but that what I’m doing needs to align with my essence. I have a lot of truth-saying and checking if we are all alright to do. when I start doing that in the work that I choose to do, I will be rewarded.

I’m far from there in my current job, but it’s constantly shifting too accommodate me, so I wouldn’t say there is a conflict there right now. However, its time for me to do some sideline things in a freelancing sort of way. I need that freedom.

But before I start changing the world around me, I need to look inside and make sure I’m kind to myself, that I’m balanced inside, that I have my own internal freedom.

I still have family plans with my beau. We travel and eat and laugh a lot. Have good friends and a great family. A nice house and a good life. And summer has started!.

Amourx.